Yá mǝn ḥayátǝk εáf—tălta ak tǝxǝddǝm, Asíd ttar ḍarăn-ǝnnăs
'A woman who does not work, until she opens her legs'
- Yá mǝn ḥayátǝk εáf— Standard opening for riddles. I cannot make any sense of it. Is it Arabic?
- tălta 'woman', used to signify that the word this riddle is looking for, is a feminine word, different from last riddle where wăǵǵid 'man' was looking for a masculine noun. Quite interesting that they are able to personify grammatical gender so well.
- ak 'negative particle'. Surprisingly not the particle wăl or something similar that we find in most other Berber languages is used (wǝl, ur, ul etc.), the cognate of that negative particle is only used for the negative imperative.
- tǝxǝddǝm 3sg.f.neg.impf. 'to work'
- Asíd 'until'
- ttar 3sg.f.impf. 'to open'
- ḍarăn-ǝnnăs 'her legs'
Tamiḍăst
'Scissors'
Yá mǝn ḥayátǝk εáf - I haven't encountered this formula, but the first three words is Arabic for "O you whose life is..." That last word isn't so clear - maybe ʕāf(ī) from ʕfw "spare"?
Posted by: Lameen | 02/11/2012 at 04:32 PM